10 years
It's a great idea, putting a modern spin on an old school idea, and monentizing relationships you already have.
Open Travel Exchange
Hostel Reviews, Booking Engines, and Directories
I have just completed the setup for joining open travel exchange - www.opentravelexchange.net .
It is a system to create more direct bookings between hostels and keep money in the hostel industry.
Basically when a customer logs into your wifi a page opens up asking them if they want to book their next hostel.
They book through the system and give the 10% deposit to you at reception.
You keep 8% and 2% goes to OTE.
They are currently connected with Myallocator and will connect with other channel managers once requested.
As an introduction they are asking hostels with them to discount 50% of the booking fee and they will not take their commission.
So you will get 5% of the booking fee instead of 8 % but they wont take their 2%.
If you have any questions you can ask here or email them at [email protected]
- Comments
10 years
They said they have been working with the Canadian Backpacker Network.
They are also planning on integrating like a hostel bulletin board as well as local information you can put on the homepage.
I guess it needs a network of hostels to sign up and will be good in an area to start relationships between hostels as well.
It is also good with countries that share borders as hostels in different countries might be with different associations but can process bookings for each other through this.
I am trying to get some hostels in Ireland setup.
10 years
So, what is the benefit to the guest using this option? Why wouldn't they simply ask the hostel to call the hostel at their next destination?
I'm not opposed to this in the slightest - in fact, 100% behind it - I'm just trying to figure out what the benefit to the guests is, rather than the hostel. If I'm a guest and I want to book a hostel, I'm supposed to look up a hostel in my next destination on this site and then go to the reception of the hostel I'm in now and ask them to book? Why would I do that? Why wouldn't I just book online myself?
Now, if the guests can book through this site themselves and the hostel still receives the commission - it's quite simple, I would block HW/HB and effectively force all guests to book through this agent. Awesome. But unless I'm missing something, this option seems to do nothing more than add and extra step in the guests ability to book their next hostel, so why would they choose it?
FORGET - this goes for EVERYONE here - what's in the hostels interests; your guests DO NOT CARE. NOT ONE BIT. They do not give a rats arse about making you more money as opposed to HW. They do not think 'oh, imagine if this place had a bit more cash, itd be amazing'. They think; 'holy crap, with all these people here, this hostel much make a tonne. Why don't they lower their prices?'
Focus on the guests interests and how to monetize that, then we'll see progress.
10 years
Once the customer connects to your wifi the booking page is displayed straight away.
They book on the website not with you but the website is only displayed from your hostel.
Hostels can put cheaper prices on here as OTAs can never see what price is on here.
10 years
While I appreciate the guests may not see or want to see an advantage in the system, the real issue is doing nothing....this simple act results in the booking agents tightening their control... if we as hoteliers are to rain in the crazy fees being charged by the likes of Hostelworld etc. we must have a voice, these same booking agents will only listen to us when we come from a position of strength, this system along with others could give us a uniformed voice.
Do remember we are ultimately the booking agents customer not the guest see their disclaimers, do also remember the internet has not changed fundamentally since its conception it is still a ‘shop window’ the booking agents have increased their expenditure in attracting customers to them and have not in essence promoted hostels per say, the only people that do not benefit financially from this extra marketing spend, are us as hoteliers and eventually the guests when we are no longer able to provide a descent venue.
Let us contribute with constructive alternatives and try to promote systems that benefit us all, we are also going to trial the system and any others that we can find.
10 years
"what is the benefit to the guest using this option? Why wouldn't they simply ask the hostel to call the hostel at their next destination?"
Well don't hw charge a booking fee to the guest? As well as not giving a rats arse about the hostel, backpackers are cheap. So many times I've been haggled with over pennies! Instantly that's a plus for the guest.
The other thing is they can feel more secure knowing they've paid a deposit in advance, just like they would have with hw or whoever.
Definitely it's not going to be so easy to convince most guests to change their habits, but i have found that generally the guests that show up who would not have booked all their hostels in advance are much more relaxed spirits and more open to trying something different that is for a good cause!
10 years
There are several benefits to guests as well as hostels. For me personally one of the biggest advantages of this system is the ease of making a forward booking. Guests will automatically be taken to the OTE page when logging on to the wifi network, which is one convenient option. The other option is to use this system at the reception as well. Instead of calling the next hostel (and with many smaller hostels around the Maritimes here often ending up with voicemail) we can now go right online at the reception and simply make the forward booking right online. It will still show which hostel made the forward booking, the guest has the peace of mind that the reservation is made, and the next hostel will not miss out on any reservations.
The fact that more of the commissions will actually stay within the Hostelling world instead of booking agents is a major positive for hostels, but I don't think that is a selling point for guests... What would be a selling point is the ease of booking for both guest and hostel combined with the security of instant confirmed reservation while prepaying the 10%.
We have just signed up with them and linked OTE with MyAllocator. Hopefully it will prove itself over the next year, we are certainly hopeful as the idea is a good one.
10 years
Hi John
You should contact Brendan (Corcreggan Mill (Dunfanaghy) I know he has joined OTE
His plan is all hostels in Ireland would join and network to help each other -AND GET PAID FOR IT
Organisations like IHH should really embrace this
Download
roomallocator.co.uk
10 years
In Argentina, some of the hostels used a system to send bookings to each other called H2H. (Check out the comments in that thread.)
The front desk workers were very active in offering to help me book the next hostel and pay a deposit for a booking voucher. It looked like it was working.
It would be ideal if guests could also directly access the system from a hostel's computers. A mobile app would be good too. Whoever is building these tools might be interested in looking at AppGyver. It lets developers write mobile apps in HTML5/JavaScript instead of having to use a different programming language for each kind of mobile operating system, so might help speed up development.
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